


The Cruel Twist of Fate

by Nimravidae



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Gift Fic, M/M, Mentions of Death, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 09:43:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/pseuds/Nimravidae
Summary: Benjamin saves Andre from a hanging, although not in the ways he certainly hoped.





	The Cruel Twist of Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [narcissablaxk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissablaxk/gifts).



He saw him watching. Eyes like the tumultuous waves that crest in angry storms, both in color and in near-God-like wrath. 

The first time John Andre ever saw Benjamin Tallmadge, it was the first time during this entire debacle he felt as though he may just slip beneath the water's edge. But that moment had been so fleeting, so swarming with desperation and confusion and anger that, when that frozen glare was gone from Tallmadge’s eye the next they met, John had considered the possibility that it was never there.

The next time, in John’s icy tent, the other Major had been there, wielding a crust of bread, a rag, and a basin of water. “I’m going to untie you,” he’d said, clear and plain, “there are guards outside.”

“It would not be sporting of me to run now would it,” John had asked, surprising the both of them. John rubbed his wrists, and did his very best to not flinch as Tallmadge’s hand came forward, wielding the dampened rag. Tallmadge paused, waited, and then continued. 

He wipes the dirt and blood from his face, he did not prod him with questions until he finished his meager meal, and even then, he was not aggressive nor violent with him. The first night was short, and even more to the point. The second night was less so. 

Tallmadge reviewed with him the things John had said, he had asked him more questions, brought, apparently, from Washington himself.

“May I ask you some of my own,” John inquired, after a few more of these tedious repetitions. 

Tallmadge hesitated, then nodded, “Yes. Whether or not I answer them is business of another sort, though.” 

“Of course.”

John thought hard of his first question, then asked: “Do you fight because you believe in this cause?” 

The answer was seamless: “Yes, I do. Did you contact Arnold or did he reach out to you?”

“I had someone contact him for me, at the behest of my superiors on the advice of a Continental. Are all these questions from Washington or are some of your own device?” 

“Some are my own questions. Who told you to contact Arnold?”

Stubborn and to the point. Though there is nothing wrong with that exactly. “I am afraid I am without his name. He was taken prisoner and gave us information.”

“What rank was he, where was he captured?” 

“See now, I believe it is my turn to ask the question, right?”

An annoyed look passes over Tallmadge’s face, something in perfect betrayal of his kind, doe-like eyes and the sweetness of before. John takes the silence as agreement and asks something he is certain will be cutting: “Do you miss him?” 

There is no question, if the lash of pain that whips across Tallmadge’s expression is any indication, that the question does exactly what John wishes it to. It strikes him hard and deep. “I had not a  _ single  _ thing to do with his capture, Major,” John promises. He had intended his voice to be hard, firm, but it could not be managed. Instead, all he has is softness, something tender and assuring. 

Tallmadge does not look back at him. 

He leaves in quite the hurry. It is another guard who escorts him from his dirty tent to another, this one prepared with bedroll and lantern. Another, a stranger, brings him his meal watching his shackles clank and clatter together as he eats with all the ferocity of a man starved. It is not elegant nor is it proper in the moment, but between himself, a tattered prisoner, and a tattered solider, there is little to be elegant and proper for. 

The plate is taken once he has had his fill and perhaps it is the silent coolness of the guards that makes John’s heart speed at the mention that Tallmadge would be joining him again that evening. It had been less than a day since John last saw him but, after his hurried departure and the lonesomeness that following, it had felt like centuries had passed. 

When he arrives, Tallmadge does not have more questions for him. 

Instead: he bears news most unwelcome.

“General Washington has called for your execution.”

Ah. The chains that bind him fall noisily as his hands drop to his sides. Ah, is what he can think. There are things he thinks he ought to say, plead for his life, offer information he simply does not have. Agree and sit back down. Bow his head and weep, shoulder shuddering at the realization that he will never again lean upon the ledge of a ship and drink in the salty scent of seawater, letting the sun sink into his hair and warm his skin as he counts the moments until he once again is home in his beloved London. He will never again gaze into the depths of the ocean, curious as to what lurks beneath her surface. He will never again pick up a quill and sketch the scenes of boring meetings into the margins of his notes.

It strikes him between the ribs. 

And he sits. 

And Tallmadge says, “I have petitioned him otherwise.”

“Oh?”

“For a trade. Yourself for Arnold. The idea is not unbecoming to him. He sent me here to attempt to find how welcome that prospect would be for the British.”

John’s head hangs. He cannot fathom it would. They have Arnold, whom they never really wanted, but they have the knowledge that they have hurt Washington. That was more important than any weight of gold, a body-blow to the heart of Washington’s army. Taking a once-loved General right from beneath their noses. 

Would they trade that, for him? He does not speak.

Tallmadge leaves once more.

John had anticipated that to be the end of it. A cycle of aides and other men come through to speak with him the following day. He talks, charms, one even gives him use of their flute to serenade. But Tallmadge is not among them. In fact, he is nowhere to be seen. Not for the entire day following. 

The next, he brings him his meal. “Yes,” he says. It is all he says, until John questions him.

“Yes?”

“I miss him.” 

And he leaves again. He breaks his fast with him the following morning, in silence. They eat together, John’s legs folded up on the bed to make room for him proper. “You’ve been asked to dine with the officers tonight,” Tallmadge tells him. “You will be taken there by the guards.”

His response is as dry as the stale crust of bread he cuts his teeth on. “I assume all petitions for my trade have failed, then.” 

“Yes.”

“I am to be executed.”

“Yes.”

John lets the moment linger. His hunger is no longer as devastating as it once felt it could have been. He sets the bread aside and stares at his hands instead. “How?”

“Pardon?”

“How is my sentence to be carried out.” 

The silence is telling. A second crust joins the first and Tallmadge’s heavy breath echoes in the cold tent. “Hamilton and I are-”

“How, sir.” 

“Hanging. The General is insistent.”

The dinner is an exuberant affair, of which John finds little solace in. Tallmadge is present, looking equally morose as John certainly feels. It is Tallmadge who escorts him back, however the path is taken at a much slower, almost leisurely, pace. John finds interest in the dirt beneath his feet, Tallmadge in the stars. 

What John wouldn’t give for one last view of the ocean, one last sea-formed breeze to prickle at his skin. One last moment on the brink of the shore, thinking of going home.

“I think of him whenever I see a hanging,” Tallmadge admits, quietly. “I do not wish to see yours and think of him again. It still does not feel real, years have passed and yet, I anticipate him so often. I find passages in books, comments and jokes made by enlisted men, and I tell myself that the next moment I see him, I will immediately inform him of what I had seen. Then I remember that he is gone and I cannot--I will not ever tell him another thing again.” Tallmadge stops walking. “Some nights, I believe it would have hurt less had I been the one in his stead.”

There is only one excuse for such thoughts, and rather than make a fool of himself, John asks, simply: “Did you love him?”

“I do.”

The night is quiet, still. Benjamin does not return to his own tent and his own bed.

They lie together, twisted bodies shivering occasionally, either from the aftershocks of oblivion or the chill of cooling sweat on bare spines. “If you,” Tallmadge starts, his beautiful fingers delicately unfurling John’s braide, “if you know something, sir--”

“John.”

“John. If you know something, John, it can help. We can… this doesn’t have to be done. Tell me everything you can and I can petition him again, for a stay or for you to just inform us of what we so desperately need.” His voice pitches low, soft, and pained. “Please.”

He wants to, oh God how he wants to, but he has nothing to give. And the prospect of betraying his home is too much agony to bear. 

“I am sorry,” he admits. It is all he has.

“As am I,” says Benjamin. 

And there is nothing else to be said.

The day comes quickly, nights spent in the same arms, the same quiet acceptance once they have completed. John does not assume is anything more than a moment, than a vessel with which the image of another could be projected. He does not take fault with this, nor does he find offense. The comfort is welcomed, readily. But, even with his night spent between the comfort of jovial dinners and the body of another there is nothing that stops the final day coming.

They spent their evenings talking, sometimes about nothing. 

Most of the time about this upcoming event.

“I do not want to watch,” Tallmadge admitted. 

“I want you to be there,” was John’s response.

John had confessed, “I want to see the ocean again.”

Tallmadge had only lips to press against his forehead. 

Most often than not: John told him, in such plain terms, that he did not wish to die like this.

He wore his uniform, dirty and stained but thankfully returned to him, but no priest came for him yet. No jailer with his rope. It was Benjamin, in full dress, wielding nothing but a piece of plain white cloth cloth. 

“I could not,” he admits, with his head bowed low, “I argued all night.” There were tears, rimming his eyes. “I could only give you this.”

What is this? John wanted to ask, wanted to know if whatever dreams he had could have possibly bore fruit. But he knows they did not, he knows there was nothing Benjamin could give him. 

He did not flinch away when Benjamin approached him, however. He walks to his death with his head held high, eyes searching the horizon for the gallow that would signal his impending doom. But it was never there. There was nothing but open sky and camp. Nothing but trees towering in the distance and birds singing and sun on his skin. 

The realization comes at the post, staring down the barrels of weapons already readied. It’s so nearly better.

The last thing he sees are eyes like the tumultuous waves. The singing in his blood nearly drowns out the shot. 


End file.
